It is often necessary to cook for significant numbers of people at locations that do not have access to working kitchen facilities. For example, disaster relief operations need transportable kitchen appliances to bring to disaster zones and relief centers. Military units need kitchen appliances to support operations as personnel are deployed and relocate base camp. Restaurants and caterers may wish to cook at remote locations, such as beaches, wooded areas, street fairs, etc. A need therefore exists for portable and/or mobile kitchen appliances.
A difficulty with portable and/or mobile kitchen appliances is that it can be difficult to obtain different types of fuel in such circumstances. For example, if the transporting vehicle runs on gasoline and the cooking appliances run off propane, then there is a need to store, transport and maintain a supply of two different fuels. Gasoline and propane are also volatile fuels and dangerous to transport and store in the field. Organizations that provide such services therefore prefer that kitchen appliances and the vehicles that transport them consume the same type of fuel. Liquid distillate fuel, such as diesel, is preferred.
One such system for meeting the above needs is a mobile kitchen trailer, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,499,755 entitled Mobile Kitchen, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Such a mobile kitchen is an enclosed trailer that includes distinct kitchen appliances, such as a stockpot cooker, a griddle, a convection oven, a refrigerator, a tray ration heater, a heated sink, and a sanitation unit. An organization can simply attach the trailer to a vehicle, and use the same type of fuel to drive the kitchen to the desired location and fuel the kitchen appliances.
While the aforementioned mobile kitchen is an effective tool, its size, footprint and cost may limit the number that can be deployed and the locations to which it can be deployed. The enclosed trailer environment for the kitchen also presents heat and noise concerns that require specialized systems to compensate for.